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CivicAction’s Race to Reduce ends on a high note

Written by Steve McLean
Published in RENX.ca

CivicAction’s Race to Reduce smart energy office challenge significantly exceeded its four-year target of 10 per cent as it drew to a close last week.

A total of 196 Greater Toronto Area office buildings — representing more than 69 million square feet or 42 per cent of the office space in the region — dropped close to 193 million equivalent kilowatt hours or 12.1 per cent in collective energy use over the four years.

“This is the equivalent of taking 4,200 cars off the road and putting $13.7 million back into office landlords’ and tenants’ pockets,” said CivicAction chief executive officer Sevaun Palvetzian.

“It used to be that landlords would look at it from their bottom line and tenants might look at it from their perspective, but it takes both sides of the coin to really see the true culture change that we’re talking about. We hope that the companies and buildings that have made an effort continue those efforts and maybe take them to new levels.

“There are also a lot of buildings that haven’t been part of the race that can also use this framework.”